Colombo’s CFA obligations list remains long

[TamilNet, Saturday, 02 November 2002, 15:04 GMT]The Sri Lankan military occupies 216 temples and
churches and at least 45 schools in Jaffna. In scores
of other schools and places of worship in the northern
peninsula the Sri Lankan armed forces have vacated
only buildings but are camped in or around the same
locations. The Sri Lankan government agreed to pull
out its armed forces from schools and places of
worship in the island’s Northeastern province when it
signed a ceasefire agreement (CFA) with the Liberation
Tigers in February 2002.

Tamilnet conducted a survey
in the Northeastern province recently to assess the
degree to which the CFA has been convincingly
implemented by Colombo.

The CFA stipulates a 30-day deadline for SL armed
forces pullout from temples, churched and mosques and
at most 160 days to vacate schools in the northeast.
Resettling Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) is a
core concern for the Tamil side in the current peace
deliberations in Thailand. The question of the Tamil
IDP’s remains a problem because their homes, villages
and towns are inside high security zones.

The Tamilnet survey reveals the magnitude of the
problem that the parties have to address in order to
create and consolidate an environment in the
northeast, which would be conducive to advancing the
peace process towards substantive stages.